I’m indebted to Ministry of Truth for recommending my site, particularly my recent posts on Nadine Dorries. I’m particularly grateful to him for widening my own vocabulary. I had no idea what “astroturfing” was; some form of sexual deviance, perhaps?

But no. According to Wikipedia, astroturfing “is a neologism for formal public relations campaigns in politics and advertising which seek to create the impression of being spontaneous, grassroots behavior, hence the reference to the artificial grass AstroTurf.

“The goal of such a campaign is to disguise the efforts of a political or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some political entity—a politician, political group, product, service or event.”

Hmm. I may have preferred the sexual deviance thing. Wonder what a “neologism” is?